Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 24, 2013

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and The Five argued about music in Russia in the 19th century. The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful, were composers Mily Balakirev, Alexander Borodin, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, who wanted to produce a specifically Russian kind of art music, rather than one that imitated older European music or relied on European-style conservatory training. Tchaikovsky wanted to write professional compositions of a quality that would stand up to Western scrutiny and thus transcend national barriers, yet remain distinctively Russian in melody, rhythm and other compositional characteristics. The Five also believed in using the melodic, harmonic, tonal and rhythmic properties of Russian folk song, along with exotic melodic, harmonic and rhythmic elements from music originating in the middle- and far-eastern parts of the Russian Empire (a practice that would become known as musical orientalism), as compositional devices in their own works. Tchaikovsky remained friendly but never intimate with most of The Five, ambivalent about their music. He took pains to ensure his musical independence from them as well as from the conservative faction at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.

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